


Ice Dreams

by GloriaMundi



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Community: trope_bingo, Dreamsharing, Gen, Mission Fic, Telepathic Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 12:58:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5091638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GloriaMundi/pseuds/GloriaMundi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Steve Rogers dreamt: the Asset does not dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ice Dreams


    MISSION REFERENCE: 1952/US/WIL  
    
    LOCATION: CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA  
    
    OBJECTIVE: Neutralize Senator Hubert Wilce  
    
    METHOD: Rifle  
    
    COLLATERAL DAMAGE: Approved  
    
    STEALTH LEVEL: None  
    
    RISKS: None  
    
    NOTES: Senator Wilce will be at home with his family [address: 2432 Sycamore Street]. Important that witnesses are left alive to report incident. Asset to be extracted by support team after successful
    completion.

Mr and Mrs Steven Rogers live at 1730 Grant Street, Brooklyn. It's a small house but it has a picket fence. A room for the baby, when they're blessed with one. Steve goes to work every day at the office. So does Peggy, though some of the neighbours whisper that she should be staying at home, giving Steve someone to come home to. (Steve knows they think he can't hear them. They're wrong.)

Most evenings, he ends up out on the porch with his next-door neighbour. Bucky's working down in the auto repair shop: says he likes working with his hands, coming home dirty and getting clean. (He winks when he says this.) Peggy laughs at him, exasperated: but later on the three of them will sit and watch TV or play cribbage.

It's not really a life that Steve ever envisaged for himself, but it's a happy one. He has his best friend and his best girl: and if the two of them sometimes bicker over him -- though less so since Bucky hurt his arm at work -- well, that ain't so bad, either.

* * *
    
    
    MISSION REFERENCE: 1959/FI/SOK  
    
    LOCATION: IMATRA, FINLAND  
    
    OBJECTIVE: Prevent defection of KGB Agent Lavrenty Sokolov  
    
    METHOD: Discretionary  
    
    COLLATERAL DAMAGE: None  
    
    STEALTH LEVEL: High  
    
    RISKS: High level of surveillance on Finno-Soviet border.  
    
    NOTES: Agent Sokolov will be crossing the border after midnight on November 12. His death must appear accidental. Asset will be in position from dawn on November 11. Must not be seen by border guards. On
    completion of mission, Asset must return to support team in Imatra without detection.

There are penguins here, though Steve's got a hazy notion that penguins live at the South Pole, and he's pretty sure he was headed north from Austria well before he had to put the Valkyrie down. Still, the little fellas are entertaining to watch, and he and Bucky always smile to see them.

They don't talk much. Steve's already told Bucky how grateful he is that Bucky came and got him out of the wreckage before the ice could cover him. He doesn't like to think of being buried under all this white featureless snow, winter after winter, until the end of the world.

It seldom snows: in fact, it must be summer here on the roof (or maybe down at the bottom) of the world, because it's bright and sunny nearly all the time. They're heading for ...

"Where we headed, again, Buck?"

"I swear that blow to the head knocked what few brains you had right outta whack," says Bucky. "I've told you a hundred times, we're going to make it to the end of the line." He gestures, and winces: he wrenched his arm, hauling Steve's unconscious carcass out of the twisted metal of the plane's cockpit, and though he doesn't complain Steve can tell that it's giving him gyp.

* * *
    
    
    MISSION REFERENCE: 1968/MO/SCI  
    
    LOCATION: TSOGT-OVOO, MONGOLIA  
    
    OBJECTIVE: Destroy scientific research base and neutralize all staff and workers.  
    
    METHOD: Discretionary  
    
    COLLATERAL DAMAGE: Discretionary  
    
    STEALTH LEVEL: Discretionary  
    
    RISKS: Research into biological and neurological warfare. Asset will require breathing apparatus and additional armour.  
    
    NOTES: Base is located underground at coordinates 44°45'33"N 104°22'39"E. Transport will attract attention: Asset will approach on foot. Terrain is
    mountainous desert, temperatures c. -20°C (night), -6.6°C (day).

"Bet you never thought we'd make it this far, Stevie!"

Steve finds, from somewhere, a new reserve of energy, and speeds up just enough to get to the mountain's summit a couple of steps ahead of his friend. "Wasn't sure you'd make it at all, slowcoach," he says.

"Hey," says Bucky, scowling as he stops beside Steve. "Not fair to mock a wounded man."

"It's only a sprain, you said so yourself."

"Yeah, well," says Bucky. He's still favouring his left arm, but he looks around keenly. "Hell of a view, ain't it?"

Fifteen miles below them, the red desert stretches out in all directions, crosshatched with narrow canals that glimmer, pinkish, in the dim sunlight. The sky above their heads is so dark a blue as to be almost black. Steve wishes he had his paints: it's not like he's ever going to forget this moment, standing atop Mons Olympus looking out over Mars with his best friend in the entire solar system, but sometimes ... sometimes it's good to have a reason to just stop and look.

Bucky's looking tired: maybe his lungs are struggling in the cold thin air. Time was Steve'd be wheezing after the gentlest of climbs. Once again he thanks the good Doctor's serum for giving him the chance to see all this: to see Bucky, his dark hair (when did it get so long?) blown about his face by the wind, the light of distant Sol reflected in his eyes, his smile a match for Steve's own.

* * *
    
    
    MISSION REFERENCE: 1979/PO/HOL  
    
    LOCATION: GDANSK, POLAND  
    
    OBJECTIVE: Exfiltrate Jerzy Holovko  
    
    METHOD: Discretionary  
    
    COLLATERAL DAMAGE: None  
    
    STEALTH LEVEL: Discretionary  
    
    RISKS: Low. (Shipyard security force has been notified and will cooperate.)  
    
    NOTES: Holovko possesses valuable information about labour movements in Poland. Must not be injured in any way that prevents him divulging this information. Currently working at Vladimir Lenin Shipyard.

"Looks like they were right about the next Ice Age being on the way," pants Steve, hauling himself up a snowbank after Bucky. "Weaaaaargh --"

Bucky grins down the slope at him. "Sorry, Stevie: couldn't resist." He skids down on his heels, and Steve gives into temptation, sticks his arm out and catches Bucky's ankle.

"Jerk!" cries Bucky, skidding right into -- over -- Steve and burying him deeper in the soft powdery snow. "Jus' you wait til --"-

A noise like a foghorn interrupts him.

"What the hell was that?" whispers Bucky, his warm breath tickling Steve's tingly-cold ear.

"Woolly mammoth, I ' spect," says Steve sagely, wriggling under Bucky. "Watch out it doesn't step on us."

"Hey," says Bucky, struggling to his feet. "I wanna -- ow!" He pulls his wrist sharply back from Steve's grasp. "That hurt, you jerk!"

"I didn't even --"

"I know, Stevie," says Bucky. His eyes are glittering, which is funny, 'cause Bucky never cries -- not 'cause of pain anyway. "I know you didn't mean it, but you -- my wrist just twisted wrong." He's cradling his left hand against his chest. "An' I can't see no damn mammoths anyway."

* * *
    
    
    MISSION REFERENCE: 1992/JA/TSU  
    
    LOCATION: KOBE, JAPAN  
    
    OBJECTIVE: Neutralize Seijo Tsukasa  
    
    METHOD: Drowning [see notes]  
    
    COLLATERAL DAMAGE: Maximum  
    
    STEALTH LEVEL: Low  
    
    RISKS: High. Yakuza enforcers guard Tsukasa at all times.  
    
    NOTES: Tsukasa's body must be retrieved intact: it is believed that key information, on microchips, has been surgically implanted in his body.
    Suggested method: drowning in ocean / tidal river. This will preserve the body and minimize suspicion if the body cannot be located by Tsukasa's bodyguard.

The water is shockingly cold: it's too early in the year to swim, but the sun felt real hot on their backs when they were up on the beach, and now Bucky's dared him to jump in and Steve's never been one to chicken out of a dare. It's too cold: he can't breathe: his chest won't expand: he's going to drown here in the none-too-clean ocean off Coney Island, with passers-by looking on and laughing at the two of them horsing around -- it must look like they're just horsing around -- in the waves.

He tries to shout for help but of course his lungs pick that moment to let the air in, and a good deal of water with it. The next wave breaks over his head and he's sinking down, down ... The surface of the water is silvery above him, like a mirror. He's on the wrong side of it. Now he's sure he's going to die. He thrashes around, desperate to hang on to something, anything, to keep his head out of the freezing water. When something cold and shiny brushes against his hand he grabs hold of it with feverish strength, and he's being pulled though he doesn't know which way, and the silver is coming closer but it's getting darker too, and --

"Steve? Steve! C'mon, Stevie, wake up."

He's on the wet sand at the water's edge, and Bucky's leaning over him, cold water (except it doesn't feel cold any more) dripping onto Steve's face. Steve wants to say something, but what comes out instead is a gout of salty water. Bucky's whacking him between the shoulder blades, and it hurts, and there's more water and Bucky telling people to back off, to give him some air.

"Cold," murmurs Steve, and Bucky's nodding and reaching up -- a quick smile of thanks -- to a lady who's handing him something, a coat, a blanket: it warms Steve's skin but doesn't melt the ice inside him.

"For a little guy, you sure got a grip," says Bucky, making a fist with his left hand and stretching out his arm to admire the mottled redness. "Look, Stevie: I'm gonna bruise, and I swear I am not letting you out of the apartment again until those bruises are clean gone."

"Hell, Buck, I'm --"

"Don't you dare say you're sorry," says Bucky, low and fierce. "I'd give my whole damn arm if it saved you."

* * *

This time when the Asset wakes -- is woken, is reborn, is dragged screaming back into the world -- there are ... memories. Something like memories. In his brain is an image of a city of the future, in a pulp magazine or on the cover of some science-fiction book. Towers rising higher than the Empire State. Huge things that move like fish through air. The city crumbling in their wake. Small flying vehicles bearing lizard-men with weapons that flash remembered blue. Above the city a hole in the sky with an army pouring down from it. Something blue that draws the eye. Soldiers, human, fighting the lizard men. A man in bright uniform fighting, hurling a shield, the pivot of the scene. In his dream he knows the --  


The Asset does not dream.  


Next time, the technician says, they will adjust the dosage. "An aberration. It won't happen again."  



End file.
